This blog began as an online newspaper about Kings Cross, Sydney. It now focuses on the deep problems of drug prohibition - which are so intrinsic to Kings Cross anyway - and exposes the many flaws in the prohibitionist argument, and the pseudo-science that governments fund to prop up their unjust and ineffective laws. Comments are welcome, but please be polite! Content on this site reflects only the views of the writer and are not necessarily those of the editor or any other organisation.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Domm attacks Clover yet again

Departed Council General Manager Robert Domm has had yet another go at Lord Mayor Clover Moore -- this time in today's Daily Telegraph.

It's mostly the same old stuff about Clover being a part-time Mayor and having her eye off the ball. However Domm has added Clover's appointment of more personal staff to his attack menu. The paper does point out, however, that Council's area has doubled in size since the Sartor days.

Clover is pictured on a Queen of Hearts card with a list of her sins, including her diplomatic handling of the Aboriginal tent embassy in Victoria Park, going to the beach and, (sic) 'was criticised for attacked the use of sniffer dogs to fight crime'.

All this proves little except that Domm truly has it in for Clover, backing up allegations that he had been actively subverting the spirit of council and community decisions. Our council now has the chance to appoint a new GM who will reinforce the mandate of elected councillors.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I read todays article and it is beyond my understanding why the Lord Mayor has a personal staff of seventeen, some of whom have salaries in excess of $135 000.

The council area is much larger than before because of the amalgamation. Naturally the overall staff of the council must increase. But surely these must be under the administration of the General Manager . Why does the Lord Mayor need a seventy percent increase in overall staff?

Former Mayor Lucy Turnbull did little except act as a mouthpiece for Robert Domm -- other than making blunders such as the Hanan Ashrawi debacle and backing the unsuccessful court bid to grab $8 milion worth of property from the old South Sydney Council, wasting high six-figure sums and providing an opportunity for ex South Sydney Mayor Tony Pooley to trump her during the politics of the forced amalgamation.

And she had a personal staff, I believe, of ten. Don't forget there are now only ten councillors where there were 16. There are nearly twice as many residents per councillor now, and the incoming mail alone is more than any councillor has time to read -- let alone the volume the Mayor is getting. This council was designed by the Carr government to be less representative in this way. Yet access to councillors has now on the whole improved, from where I sit.

You Clover-haters are going to have to find better ammunition if you want these attacks to stick. Tip: she was again spotted having another day off on a beach north of Sydney last long weekend -- TAKING HER DOGS FOR A WALK! This, according to the Telegraph, is a Lord Mayoral crime. Go for it.

Re the number of councillors -- you've got to add the South Sydney retinue if you are going to count the people they represented. Residents-to-councillor ratio there has gone from 6,666-1 to over 13,000-1.

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About Me

Hello again. world. I am a journalist, designer and photographer eking out a living by grazing on economic opportunities that come my way. I have run my business, Superkern Design Pty Ltd, since 1991. The gross oversupply of designers being pumped out by a dysfunctional university system has made it very difficult to survive as a designer since the late '90s, but on balance I like the advantages of working for myself at home. The older I get, the more human affairs look farcical. The average person is pretty damn average, you see. But there you go. I try to inject some commonsense into the public discourse which, at least in Sydney, is increasingly dominated by moral panics and middle-class agendas of control and gentrification. I don't quite understand why people from alternative subcultures tend to be quite happy for the middle class to live their lives as they wish, but the reverse is not true. And yet this same middleclass constantly use the words "diversity" and "tolerance". It's a funny old world.
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